Cuts in funding to the Canadian Television Fund, the Canadian government’s mechanism for funding Canadian television will mean several longstanding shows will go off the air. “In all, 129 productions – 64% of all applicants – were denied funding from the CTF’s Licence Fee Program, which contributes 20% of a show’s budget. Seventy-three productions combined to receive a total of $75-million in funding, including Trailer Park Boys, Da Vinci’s Inquest and Blue Murder.”
Blog
Moby Bush?
Jason Epstein equates Moby Dick to the current Bush Administration. “Melville’s great novel is prophetic even if the resemblance of the Pequod to George Bush’s White House is imperfect. Though Ahab’s missing leg and the destroyed Twin Towers are symbolically comparable losses, as is Dick Cheney’s lost opportunity to kill Saddam Hussein in 1991, Iraq will not crush and sink the United States as the whale crushed and sank the Pequod. Nor is George W. Bush a grizzled monomaniac whose mere glance strikes terror, but the callow instrument of neoconservative ideologues, obsessed since the end of the cold war with missionary zeal to Americanize the world, as previous empires had once hoped with no less zeal to Romanize, Christianize, Islamicize, Anglicize, Napoleonize, Germanize, and communize it.”
SAG And AFTRA Union Leaders Vote To Merge
Directors of America’s two main actors unions have coted to merge. “Aimed at providing more negotiating muscle, saving money and ending jurisdiction squabbles, the plan would fold the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists into the new Alliance of International Media Artists. Sunday’s vote by SAG and AFTRA directors turns the issue over to members, who are expected to vote by this summer. Although the strong support by directors bodes well for the plan, at least 60% of the members still must OK it.”
What Will It Take To Revitalize The Royal Shakespeare?
Has Michael Boyd just taken on the worst job in theatre? He says running the Royal Shakespeare Company is “tricky,” not bad. “Recently, it’s been very difficult to resist the feeling of the RSC being the largest machine in an entrepreneurial theatrical world, but what we’ve actually got to be is the alternative to the entrepreneurial world. We’ve got to be a bit of a bastion of idealism, a bastion of research and development. We need room to experiment with our work, not always feeling the need to programme conservatively. We do Shakespeare for goodness’ sake. That’s commercial enough in its own right.’ He wants to return the RSC to the cutting edge of British theatre.”
Has Political Comedy Lost Its Edge?
“Many Americans, it’s often remarked, who don’t read the papers get their news from the likes of Jon Stewart and David Letterman. Comedy needn’t have a political purpose. It can just be funny. But at its best, political humor can be subversive, pushing the world in at least a different direction. Rush Limbaugh, a former deejay, who is as much a humorist as polemicist, had this effect 10 years ago, though probably not any more. But, in general, because political comedy is so pervasive, it may have lost much of its ability to be persuasive. With political comedy now 24/7, it’s startling to be reminded that the art form, as we know it, didn’t exist until about 40 years ago.”
Prisoner Of HDTV
The transition from analog broadcast television to digital broadcast television (DTV), now an enshrined part of American broadcasting policy, faces a horde of technical, legal, economic, and social problems. Taken together, the problems look as unbeatable as any monster. Making things worse, many factions with a stake in the outcome are at war over such issues as technology mandates, copyright protection, and fair use.” So who really cares? “There’s much more than digital television at stake. Bad government actions in this sphere – and you can be sure that Congress and the Federal Communications Commission will act rather than refrain from acting – could permanently shoehorn part or all of the computer revolution under government-driven design control. Not only would this likely kill the dynamism of the information-technology sector, but it is unlikely to do much to protect copyright interests.”
Kennedy Center – Right Building, Wrong Place?
So there are big plans to improve the Kennedy Center and connect it up with the rest of the city. Great, writes Charles Paul Freund, but the Kennedy Center still lacks that element crucial to a great cultural institution…
Are NPR Underwriting Spots Too Commercial?
Are public radio underwriting spots sounding too much like commercials? Many local public radio stations have been complaining about spots carried on National Public Radio. “In the past several months, stations have blasted the network for accepting a Microsoft spot that urged listeners to ‘learn more about…’ and one for Saab heralding a ‘. . . dynamic new look’.”
Debating NY Arts Cuts
New York Gov. George Pataki proposes cutting the state’s arts budget as part of a series of cuts of the state budget. “He wants to trim the grants to arts organizations by 15 percent, from about $44.4 million to $37.8 million. But critics want far deeper cuts. The grants totaled more than $50 million a decade ago but have ebbed and flowed with the state’s economy. New York spent more than any other state on the arts last year, according to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.”
US Says It Will Help “Restore” Baghdad Museum
The United States says it will help restore the Iraq National Museum. “Secretary of State Colin Powell said the Baghdad museum was ‘one of the great museums in the world’ and that the US would take a leading role in restoring it. Coalition forces were criticised for not protecting the institution, which housed many treasures from ‘the cradle of civilisation’, when it was ransacked on Friday. But critics say it’s too late. ‘And it’s gone, and it’s lost. If Marines had started before, none of this would have happened. It’s too late. It’s no use. It’s no use’.”
See pictures of damage to the museum here